


The Opposite of Love's Indifference

by mynameisnemo



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canon Typical Child Neglect, Creeper Elias Bouchard, Creepy, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Do Not Archive (The Magnus Archives), LonelyEyes, M/M, Metaphysical Sex, No Smut, POV Peter Lukas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:21:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25100824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mynameisnemo/pseuds/mynameisnemo
Summary: What good is being alone if you don’tKnowhow alone you truly are?
Relationships: Elias Bouchard/Peter Lukas
Comments: 12
Kudos: 56





	The Opposite of Love's Indifference

**Author's Note:**

> Probably the most questionable thing I have written to date. To clarify the tags, there is no sex here but Elias/Jonah is an utter creep throughout. If you think I should add any tags for warnings please lmk.
> 
> Massive thanks to [Ananeiah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ananeiah/pseuds/Ananeiah) as per usual. 
> 
> Title taken from [Stubborn Love by The Lumineers](https://youtu.be/UJWk_KNbDHo) but the writing soundtrack was pretty much exclusively [Lord Huron's Strange Trails album](https://youtu.be/qvYJz_oUGow).

He'd known Jonah for years by then.

Not as Jonah of course. Not then. Back when they met he was James Wright, the boring, unremarkable head of The Magnus Institute.

It had been a rare trip home, for a funeral of course. He can't even remember which distant family member had died. But that was the point, wasn't it? 

He'd had been traveling back to Liverpool, back to the docks and the Tundra and the solitude of his cabin with nothing but the unending sea ahead of him. 

He'd been sitting in his four-seat alone. The train was nearly empty but he had paid for the extra seats so he could maintain the bubble of isolation. He could have driven, or been driven. The car service his family contracted was very good, the drivers trained to stay in their section, the divider closed tight. They never opened the door or unloaded luggage, never rolled the window down for a tip. It was all done without seeing another person. But it was to be a long voyage and he had been wanting to soak in the solitude. He had learned when he was much younger that the best way to appreciate loneliness was to spend a time near other people but apart from them. 

He was aware that it was a different track than others of his family took, but it worked for him. Had worked for him for years, for nearly his whole life.

So he had sat in his seats and blocked them from other passengers and revelled in the bubble he had created for himself, tilting his head back and staring out the window at the lonely English countryside, punctuated by houses and towns as the train rolled by. He had felt the fog wrapping around him, just the slightest bit, an echo of the mist clinging to the fields they passed by when he was jarred out of it by the feeling of being Watched. 

Of being Seen.

A throat had cleared, and he had turned away from the window to see a man sitting across from him. Sharp suit, sharp haircut, even the smirk that his mouth hinted at was sharp. Peter felt like he could cut himself on this man and not even know it, like the slice of a scalpel, painless and deep enough to be deadly. 

He felt the fog around him fade and straightened in his seat, glancing to the side of the man, his eyes focusing on the headrest behind him. 

"Seat's taken," he said, finding his voice rougher than normal, as though he'd been standing on the prow of his ship and inhaling the sea salt spray for hours. 

"Now, Peter," the man said, his voice snide and cutting, "you can't lie to me. I Know you're alone."

The shock of hearing his name from this stranger's mouth had drawn his gaze to his eyes and he had felt like he was drowning in them. Like he was being flayed open somewhere deep inside, a wound that tore him apart at a visceral level, a mortal wound.

The man blinked and Peter jerked his gaze to the side again. 

"Apologies, have we met?"

The man had leaned forward, extending a hand that had Peter shifting backwards in his seat. "Elias Bouchard." He paused. Peter could see from the corner of his eye as his lips curved up in that smirk again and it reminded him of a shark's grin. "A pleasure to meet you again." He leaned back, dropping his hand as the moment became uncomfortable, more uncomfortable. "But we've met before. You knew me as James Wright then, even though that wasn't my name then either."

Peter shifted, allowing the lapel of his coat to ride higher, to where he could smell the comforting salt spray and fog scent that saturated it. He inhaled deeply and drew words up from the well within him.

"If your name isn't Elias, or James, then. Then what is it?"

Elias glanced around and in another man, perhaps in the man this man used to be even, it would have looked furtive. But here, now, this man just made it look _hungry._ He turned his gaze back to Peter before leaning in. 

_"Jonah Magnus."_

Peter hadn't known the name immediately, but after a minute of searching his memory he found it. It was an old name, a name his tutors had mentioned when they were teaching him of his faith and the other faiths like his.

"Jonah Magnus is dead."

"And yet," The man sat back and spread his arms, the shoulders of his tailored suit jacket moving like art as he did, "here I am. Live and in the flesh." His eyes raked up Peter where he sat and though they had been an unremarkable brown, Peter couldn't help but think that they had somehow become an unnatural glowing green for a moment as he did.

Peter had shuddered, feeling the prick of what could be mistaken for cold throughout his body, but it was warm in the carriage. He was even, in his rough work trousers and heavy coat, overdressed for the season. And he knew cold, knew it in the way only someone who stood in the prow of a ship near the arctic circle as a storm blew in could know it. 

This wasn't cold. This was being Seen. Frissions of needle sharp prickles flared over his skin, stripping him of his clothes, his flesh, even the fog he tried to call to him. 

He was being laid as bare as if he had been shorn like a sheep, nothing between his true self and that gaze.

It was only a moment before the feeling faded, leaving only phantom pricks raising goosebumps on his flesh. He shuddered, drawing his arms around himself in the semblance of an embrace, trying to make the feeling go away. 

"Pleasure to meet you again," Elias/James/Jonah drawled, unfolding himself to stand agonizingly close to where Peter was huddled in his seat. "Just wanted to introduce myself once more." He extended a hand and Peter tried to shrink back but there was nowhere to go. "Be Seeing you soon," the man said and rested a hand, warm even though Peter's heavy coat, on his shoulder for a moment before withdrawing.

A moment later there was the rush of air as the doors between carriages opened and shut again and Peter let his breath out, feeling it catch in what could almost be described as an overwhelmed sob. 

He moved his hands up, pulling the lapels of his jacket up around his ears, buttoning it against the lingering feeling of invasion before tucking his arms back around himself. 

He stayed that way for the rest of the train ride, only feeling secure enough to disembark once the rest of the passengers had already shuffled off into the late night, just before the train pulled away again. He had hauled his heavy seabag over his shoulder and made his way from the platform, the station, into the sodium-lit night that grew foggier with each step he made towards the docks. 

He didn't meet anyone on the way there.

~•~

He doesn't forget Elias. There's no way to forget about Elias. And he'll call him Elias because that's how he had introduced himself this time.

He doesn't forget about him but there is an easiness in letting the ocean forget him. He sets course for Punta Cana, then Dakar, St. Johns, Vik, A Coruña, Porto do Itaqui. 

It's there that the grumbles of the crew become too much. Their voyage is nonsensical, crisscrossing the Atlantic with little or no reason, not that it matters since the only cargo they haul is the Lukas faith, proselytizing in the only way Peter knows how. But the crew wants to return home, to England. Even this band of misfits feels the need to kiss the soil of their purported home sometimes, Peter supposes. 

He doesn't think of why he's avoiding his native country. Doesn't acknowledge the goosebumps that rise on his skin when he remembers the echo of those glowing eyes on him. 

He's picked up a promising new crew member recently, a woman desperate not to be stranded, and there's rarely anyone as lonely as a woman crewmember aboard a cargo ship. He's looking forward to the way it will feel when he feeds her to his god.

It's before that sacrifice when it happens. 

He's in his cabin, alone of course. He rarely ventures out and no one has ever been in the space he's cultivated as his own. Nothing but a bunk and a bolted down sealocker in the room, no personal effects. Not as though he owns anything that isn't disposable anyway, but for the coat thrown over the chest and the whistle that dangles from its hook on the wall. Waiting to be taken down and used but not yet. Not yet. 

Anticipation is a type of satisfaction all on its own.

He's alone and reveling in it. The fog in his cabin curling up around his bunk as he lies in it, lulled by nothing but the creaks of the ship around him as it rocks him as if he was in a cradle. 

He's alone and then suddenly he isn't. He opens his eyes, looking around for the intruder but there is no one there. Still, he can feel it. Feel the gaze of another being upon him. Feel goosebumps break out on his skin at the sensation of being Looked Upon.

It's not until the gaze focuses on the back of his neck, pressed into the thin pillow behind him, that he realises what's happening. Who, or perhaps more accurately, what is Looking at him. Seeing him without being seen.

That awareness resolves itself into an image in his head. Elias sitting in an office behind a huge, bare desk, arms propped on the arm rests of the extravagant office chair he was sat in. His suit, his hair, his smirk just as sharp and neat as they had been last they met.

_Hello, Peter. Long time, no See._

The voice is everywhere and nowhere at once, reverberating in Peter's bones and yet he knows no breath was uttered to make sound. He hears nothing but he knows what has been said.

Peter shudders, attempting to roll off the thin mattress, to stand and put his jacket on. To go on deck, be with other people so he knows that the gaze he feels on him comes from the curiosity of his crew and not this man, this being, who can Look into him. Who can Know him no matter how much he struggles against it.

He levers himself onto his elbow and feels his entire body go numb with pins and needles. Feels his muscles go slack under him, the dip and roll of the Tundra tipping him onto his back again, limp.

 _My, you **are** sensitive,_ he hears and yet does not hear as he shudders. _It takes only the slightest glance and you're practically defenseless under my Eye._

Peter opens his mouth. To tell Elias to stop, to tell him to go, to say **please** but then snaps it closed again. He won’t beg. 

_Oh you will, my dear Peter, you will._

Peter shudders at the words as they ripple through him, feeling the possession of them not just in his ears but in his skin, in his viscera, in his bones. It’s wrong, it’s anathema to him to be Known like this and he can feel his breath coming in short, sharp pants as he tries to push it away, push it out. 

But he can’t. 

It won’t leave and suddenly he can See, even with his eyes closed. He can see Elias again, in the dark of his office. His head a ghastly skull illuminated by a sick green glow from his eyes and that Chesire cat grin. He throws his head back against the thin pillow beneath it as he feels that gaze, that Knowing gouge through him again. It scores up from his feet to his legs to his belly to his chest to his head and then, horrifyingly, he can feel it inside his skull. Feels it scrape through his brain like the scratch of a fork against a plate. 

He tries to curl into himself, is surprised when he finds that he can. He has enough control of himself for that even if his every attempt to stand, to leave, to throw Elias out fails as though he was simply a moth beating itself to death against a light. He clutches at his head as he feels Elias root around through his thoughts, his memories, the things that make up the most basic elements of himself. Without realising he’s going to, he hears himself speak. 

“Get **out**.”

 _I don’t think I shall,_ he hears in response. Can feel the words against his skin as if they have been pressed there by that thin-lipped grin. _My, there are some **interesting** discoveries to make here, aren’t there._

A long forgotten memory flashes before Peter’s eyes. Himself, standing alone in the great parlour of the house he was raised in. He’s tiny, can’t even see above the arm of the chair next to him. There’s a fire lit and roaring in the fireplace and a whiskey glass half-full on the mantle, the ice bobbling slightly as though it had just been set down. He toddles forward, feeling the wood of the floor frigid under his bare feet as they poke out from the hem of his nightgown. He’s unsteady as he walks, one chubby fist reaching out to brace against the brocade of the chair as he rounds it. 

_Mummy?_ He hears it not in Elias’s voice, not in his own grown up voice, but in a high, childish mumble. He doesn’t remember encountering a child as young as he must be in this memory, but his impression is that this is how they talk when they are only just learning to speak. 

_Mummy?_ the voice comes again, this time sounding tearful. _Mummy?_

There is no answer and he feels himself wobble and fall, the ground so close as he hits it. A deep loneliness fills his chest. Not the comforting one that he knows now as an adult. This is fearful and full of danger. There is no one around to soothe him, to gather him up and comfort him, and so he sits there and listens to the child of his memory cry. It’s a raw, aching sound. 

_She was right there, you know,_ Elias says as the memory fades. 

Peter blinks tears from his eyes. 

_She stood right there by the mantle where she’d put her glass down and watched as you cried. She smiled as you sobbed._

Peter Knows. Knows that she had just stood there and watched him. He can barely remember her face but he can Feel the joy of her heart when she had seen him crying to himself so forlornly. The pride that she had felt as she had continued to sip at her whiskey and watch as he cried himself out until he had finally fallen asleep. And then she had stepped softly around him and left him there. 

He could barely remember waking the next morning but now he can remember the chill of the room, the fire died to ash and the whiskey glass empty on the mantle. He had gathered himself up and taken himself back to the nursery that morning, putting himself back to bed before the nurse came to find him.

He wonders if that was the moment when he realised that it didn’t matter how woefully he cried, no one was coming for him. 

Still, he can remember now what it felt to want an answer, to want a comforting touch, a warm embrace. 

He stiffens as he realises that he’s uncurled on the bed, that he can feel Elias’s Knowing stroke over him in a mocking imitation of a caress. As he realises it, he feels his skin crawl. He doesn’t want this. He **doesn’t.**

 _Oh but you do, don’t you?_

The words are like another unwanted caress against him. 

_Haven’t you always wondered?_ Elias asks, voice smooth like the silk sheets of Peter’s boyhood bed. _Haven’t you always been curious? What it was that your siblings sought as they were sent away? What it was you were missing behind those windows you walked past?_

Each word is accompanied by a stroke of Knowing, lighting up different parts of his brain. At once making him feel phantom touches on his body, feel phantom sounds, memories of sights and smells drifting across his senses until the only thing there is to focus on is Elias.

_Isn’t it you who discovered that one cannot be truly Lonely if one doesn’t have other people to be lonely apart from?_

“Stop-.” He bites his tongue on the 'please' even as he shudders. As he feels those fingers of Knowing sift through his being again. 

_Stop?_ Elias mocks, his voice light, amused. _Are you sure?_

“Yes!” Peter is shocked by his shout in the stillness of his cabin. “Stop! Go!” 

The touch pulls back suddenly and he cries out. The rush of Loneliness that floods in is almost as painful as the touch had been, sparking through him in a tingling absence. A fresh round of tears fill his eyes, leaking across his temples as he tries to get control, tries to pull fog around himself, tries to sink into the Lonely. He can get there now, he can feel the endlessness of it within his grasp. Knows he can retreat into it forever and never feel this Knowing again.

And then he’s yanked back. 

_Ah-ah-ah,_ Elias chides and the Knowing slams through Peter again. He thinks he might scream but he’s not sure. He can feel the staticky tingle of Knowing flow through every inch of him, ripping the fog away as if it were stripping him of his clothes, flaying apart his skin. He’s helpless, pinned like a butterfly on a collector's board, unable to do anything except allow Elias to vivisect him, the Knowing rolling through him like waves breaking on a shore. 

It builds and builds through him, fraying his very being until he feels as though it will simply destroy him at an atomic level.

And then, a new sensation. Fear. Fear that this will be what destroys him. That he’ll die, here in the sanctuary of his cabin. Not alone and fading into the mists but by his very being torn apart by being Known. He can almost feel Elias’s grin against every inch of his skin as the fear wells within him. Feel as the gaze bears down harder, scrambling him and filling his head with static. He gasps, chokes out a moan, then a word. 

“Please. Stop, Elias. Please.”

The words continue to spill out from lips that feel torn, scraping over a throat that’s raw from the intrusion of Knowing. He can feel himself whine, a sob tearing from his chest. 

**”Please, Elias!”**

And then it stops. It’s sudden, relief rushing through every part of him as the pressure lifts just as he feels like he will fly apart. It’s not completely gone and he gasps. The thought that Elias is still holding him together, making sure that he stays in one piece floating through his head. He can’t tell if it’s something that comes from Elias or from himself as he struggles to suck in air, as he kicks his legs against the blanket, trying to twist away.

One last brief touch on his mind, one last image for him to Know. He can see Elias again, though now he seems to be sprawled back in his chair, the picture of indolent satisfaction. A gratified smirk plays over his lips where they curve up and they don’t move but Peter can hear Elias’s voice. 

_A pleasure, Peter. Be Seeing you again soon._

And then it’s all over. He feels the Eye blink and finally look away again. 

It leaves him shuddering and shaking on his bed, sweat soaking through his shirt into the sheets and mattress and it’s all over.

He feels strangely bereft in and amongst the relief. But he can wrap the Lonely around himself again, blanketing himself in cool fog and feeling how it covers every inch of him, no part of him still laid bare by that horrible Knowing. When it’s over he breathes a sigh of relief and hopes that he never has to feel anything like that again.

~•~

It’s years before he does. Years and lifetimes and bets and plots that fail and meeting with Elias and feeling just a flicker of that horrible pain that shoots through him when Elias glances at him, Sees him. But apparently Elias has given him enough attention, has Seen everything he wants, because he never does it again. Only reminds Peter sometimes that he can, reminds him how it felt before blinking and looking away again and smirking as Peter wraps the Lonely around himself and disappears into it mid-sentence sometimes. 

It’s years before he feels it again but he does. 

_Tell me your story, Peter Lukas. **Tell me.**_

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. <3


End file.
